See the world's top ten most powerful women

Thursday, 21 December 2017

1. Angela Merkel, German Chancellor, 58 years.

For the second consecutive year, Germany's undisputed iron woman is at the top of Forbes's list of the world's most powerful women. Since 2005, the priest-daughter from the former GDR has been in heavy power - not only as the first female chancellor, but also as the first chancellor from East Germany and the youngest chancellor in history. Merkel is a qualified physicist, and has since received some criticism for basically being more scientist than politician when addressing Germany's and Europe's major challenges. She is not a woman with great social skills and almost never expresses compassion - or emotion - in public. On the other hand, she is lightning sharp on numbers and facts, and achieves results with a hard-boiled detail-bound stubborn wearing a pantsuit. Merkel is probably best known for her struggle to save the euro, but she has also recently thrown out in a fight against feminists with her suggestion that home-housed German housewives have to pay to go home and take care of their children . In the same breath, it is mentioned that the world's most powerful woman rises every morning and makes breakfast for her husband.

Bonus: On Forbes' list of the most powerful people in the world, Angela Merkel must see himself beaten by three men - US, Russia and China presidents.

2. Anna Wintour, Chief Editor, American Vogue, 62.

If you talk about power in the fashion world, you will not get out of Anna Wintour. The woman who has said thief and note from Vogue's chief editorial chair for 24 years is an institution. This year, however, her focus has been a completely different place with her support for Barack Obama. In May, she gathered for her election campaign when she had a dinner at Sarah Jessica Parker's apartment, where 50 (very rich) celebrities paid well 230,000 kroner for a seat at the table. It is now speculated whether the reward for her hard work becomes an ambassador job. In the public no-one knows Anna Wintour. She is known to be insensitive, hard and scary. A former assistant has said, "She throws you in the water, and either you sink or you learn to swim."

3. Christine Lagarde, Director of the International Monetary Fund, 56 years.

There should be a woman, after the former director of the International Monetary Fund, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, accused of sex assault against a maid and retired from her position. The woman became the always cool, always elegant Parisian Christine Lagarde, already fragrant by the post of France's finance minister. For a year now she has had the debt crisis in Europe at the top of her block. A task that causes some clash with the world's most powerful woman, Angela Merkel. Nevertheless, they are said to be good friends and on Christmas presents. Overall, Christine Lagarde is the supporter of more women coming to the food sector in the financial sector. She has previously stated that "in gender-dominated environments, men tend to show how much hair they have on the chest, compared to the man next to it. Honestly, there should never be too much testosterone in one room."

Bonus: Christine Lagarde swam on France's synchronous swim team as a teenager.

4. Dilma Rousseff, Brazilian President, 64 years.

On January 1, 2011, the Brazilians became their first female president. And it's not any woman, but one of those who are used to fighting the very great forces. As a 22-year-old, the former Marxist guerrilla soldier was thrown into prison for two years in the battle against the dictatorial military regime, who was in power for more than 20 years. During his sentence, Dilma Rousseff was tortured. 39 years later, she saw her with wig when she attended the climate summit in Copenhagen as Brazil's climate ministers. Her hair was not yet fully greeted after chemotherapy with chemotherapy. She, as we know, survived both, and must be said to be done by the substance it requires to control one of the world's largest economies. Dilma Rousseff has been married twice and has an adult daughter. And with its focus on social programs that will bring more Brazilians out of poverty, she has a huge backing in the population.

5. Queen Elizabeth of England, 86 years.

For 60 years, Queen Elizabeth has been sitting on the throne in England. She is both loved and hated by the English population, who has often described her as a stiff stiffly. Especially in connection with the death of Princess Diana in 1997, the royal house was criticized for not participating in the country care which also spread to the rest of the world. The English monarch, however, has regained support in the population, but experts believe that part of it is attributable to "The Kate Effect" - Prince Williams's new wife. Queen Elizabeth, however, proved to have a good deal of self-esteem when she thanked for opening the London Olympics earlier this year. Here, she saw a movie sequel to James Bond himself (Daniel Craig) at Buckingham Palace before the two sat in a helicopter and flew to the opening ceremony where she ran into a parachute. The last part, however, made a stuntman ready for her.

6. Hillary Clinton, US Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, 64 years.

The phenomenon "Hillary Clinton" was revealed when she was the first time behind her husband Bill for eight years. The Lewinsky scandal knows us all and there has been a lot of water under the Clinton Bridge since. Bill has retired to a more comfortable role, while his powerwoman four years ago went after becoming America's first female president. She did not reach that post, but the pictures of Hillary, giving hand to leaders all over the world underscore the power she still has achieved. There is not much bullshit with Hillary - she has negotiated with Taliban. But she also has a soft side, and when the Clinton couple got their only daughter Chelsea, she chose to set the lawyer aside and prioritize the task of mother and wife - the hard-boiled politician came to the world later. With the experience in the backpack, the US Secretary of State, when she was in Denmark in the spring, gave good advice to Danish women who choose between career and family: "Modern women need to try to find a balance. Some believe that they must choose either family or children or a career in advance. You must not give up before trying to find a balance between the two areas. "

Bonus: Hillary Clinton himself rejects her candidacy for the presidential election in 2016, but several experts believe we have far from seen the last thing about Mrs Clinton in American politics.

7. Janet Napolitano, US Secretary of Internal Security, 54 years.

After September 11, 2001, a new ministry saw the light of the day in the United States: Department of Homeland Security. In 2008, Janet Napolitano entered the post, whose main task is to ensure that the country is ready to resist any threat - not only terror, but also natural disasters, trafficking and illegal refugees on her table.

Earlier this year, Janet Napolitano was accused of sexual harassment against male employees in his ministry. The charge alleged that men were both passed by promotions and verbally harassed. The minister refused everything. Napolitano is single and has never been married and therefore has to answer regularly if she is a lesbian. The answers are mixed, but never affirmative, and on the question, if she is in relationship, she has answered: "Yes, with my staff."

8. Jill Abramson, editor-in-chief of The New York Times, 58 years.

The American newspaper The New York Times was founded in 1851. 160 years should go before a woman could sit in the chief editor's chair. She did her last year and that woman is Jill Abramson. In recent years, the newspaper world has softened, but Jill Abramson has turned the old skirt by focusing on social media and user payment. Today, more than 40 million unique users find their news on the New York Times website, yet the editorial editor does not think that it can be seen on the cover page that there is now a woman at the helm. Despite a past as hard-boiled investigative journalist, Jill Abramson has also written a blog about his golden retriever scout. A blog that came out in a whole book titled "The puppy diaries" this autumn.

9. J. K. Rowling, author, 47.

You can have great power through your pen. This proves the mother of all the books about wizard Harry Potter, Joanne Rowling. She is the first female writer who has become billionaire on her books, and her universe is so popular that an amusement park in the United States has opened "The Wizarding World of Harry Potter". Rowling wrote the first Harry Potter book as a mother-in-law on aid assistance. The book was published in 1997 and was a huge success. The last and seventh volume in the series about Harry Potter appeared 10 years later and sold 11 million copies in the first 24 hours. Rowling got married in 2001 with an anesthetist, and with him she has become a mother of three.

Bonus: Rowling's first adult novel "The empty space" will be published on November 15th at Gyldendals Forlag.

10. Melinda Gates, co-chairman of The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, 48 years.

Melinda Gates is powerful for mainly two reasons: 1. She is co-founder and co-founder of the world's largest private charity fund, which gives real, a lot of money for social purposes in especially developing countries. 2. She launched a campaign against the Vatican's ban on abortion and contraception this summer - despite being herself a Catholic. Over the next eight years, Melinda Gates grants more than 800 million dollars a year to strengthen women's access to contraception in poor countries, and she has stated that it will be her life's work. Melinda Gates is married to Bill Gates, co-founder of Microsoft, and together she has three children. She is herself former director of Microsoft, where she met Bill. In 1996, she retired to dedicate her life to charity.